flame emission spectroscopy

On a simple level, flame emission spectroscopy can be observed using just a flame and samples of metal salts.

Flame photometry is crude but cheap compared to flame emission spectroscopy, where the emitted light is analysed with a monochromator.

Thomas Melvill delivers a lecture entitled Observations on light and colours to the Medical Society of Edinburgh, a precursor of flame emission spectroscopy.

Because of this, he is sometimes described as the father of flame emission spectroscopy, though he did not identify the source of the line, or propose his experiment as a method of analysis.

This method is used in flame emission spectroscopy, and it was also the method used by Anders Jonas Ångström when he discovered the phenomenon of discrete emission lines in 1850s.

Although the flame test only gives qualitative information, not quantitative data about the proportion of elements in the sample, quantitative data can be obtained by the related techniques of flame photometry or flame emission spectroscopy.

Modern implementations of atomic spectroscopy for studying visible and ultraviolet transitions include flame emission spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, glow discharge spectroscopy, microwave induced plasma spectroscopy, and spark or arc emission spectroscopy.